Ohio is totally stressing me out, man
I try to avoid these lists. Really I do. You can take only so many lists that purport to reveal “The Fifty Fattest Cities” before throwing up your hands in frustration and seeing for yourself how many bites are needed to eliminate a Twinkie (the correct answer is two).
Every now and then, however, some group I’ve never heard of releases something so absurd that I can’t help but get sucked in.
The last time this happened was in 2017, when Yelp and realtor.com jointly declared Columbus No. 1 when it came to the “Hottest Hipster Markets in America.” The two outlets crunched their numbers and then ranked cities based upon their Market Hotness quotient and Yelp Hipster Score.
Yes, I’m serious.
Another reason for lower counts in shelters was because of social distancing requirements, said Sue Villilo, assistant vice president of community based services for Lutheran Social Services.
“You're hosting me, I'm not on the lease. We both lose our housing,” she said.
Enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus money helped many pay rent, she said.
Another reason for lower counts in shelters was because of social distancing requirements, said Sue Villilo, assistant vice president of community based services for Lutheran Social Services, which runs Faith Mission.
Villilo said that those requirements prevented shelters from expanding capacity during the winter. Each of Faith Mission's two men's shelters has a capacity of 95, and it normally adds another 24 beds total during the winter. The capacity of the women's shelter is 38, with another eight beds normally added in winter.
The number of people in transitional housing increased from 127 to 155.
The point-in-time counts are mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Because of the pandemic, no count was made this year of homeless people living outside because officials didn't want volunteers doing the count to be exposed, Heritage said. “This year was a little weird,” she said.
She said 200 beds at a North Side hotel on Mediterranean Avenue that were made available during the pandemic helped house people who otherwise might have been outside.
That includes Kenneth Mckoy, who found himself without a place to live after he tested positive for COVID-19 in 2020 and then underwent surgery on his retina.
This past fall, when he went back to the motel where he had been living and working maintenance and at the front desk, the owner said he could not return and had been removed from the payroll.
“COVID totally changed and upended my whole world,” he said.
Mckoy, 62, then moved into the Mediterranean Avenue hotel the Community Shelter Board was renting to house homeless men. A week-and-ahalf later, his Honda Accord was stolen, and with it, a 65-inch flat screen TV, guitar amps and a keyboard.
Mckoy has recently been living in a West Side apartment and has been working with a counselor to find work.
Keith Mccormish, the director of the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, said the warming centers that opened in Downtown Columbus this past winter served 243 unique individuals with 2,200 visits. About 90% of the individuals were living outside, he said. The centers were open between Dec. 15 and April 4.
Mccormish said he hopes that ongoing drop-in shelters with showers and laundry services will be established. “We're looking at options with the city and other funders to do that,” he said.
“The family system is usually busy in the summer,” Mccormish said. “I am a little concerned. I don't think anyone knows what's going to happen.”
Villilo said that she hopes social distancing guidelines will be removed at some point because the demand for beds will be there, as families recovering from the pandemic burn through resources and staying with friends and family may not be options any more.
“Unfortunately, homelessness may be an outcome,” she said.
Heritage said what happens next depends on continuing aid coming from the federal government. That means continuing to have some support for low-income people in terms of rental assistance to help alleviate problems, she said.
Many people were working in service-related jobs. “Many of these jobs are not coming back,” she said.
Heritage is also worried that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's extension of the eviction moratorium through the end of June could be lifted before that because of a recent decision in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
About 20% of renters nationwide said they didn't pay the previous month's rent, according to a survey the Census Bureau published in March.